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STRIKER RIGHT!

Martin Jol revealed that he almost took off matchwinner Robbie Keane against West Brom last night - thankfully, his gut instinct to keep him on proved right.

Martin Jol revealed that he almost took off matchwinner Robbie Keane against West Brom last night - thankfully, his gut instinct to keep him on proved right.

Head Coach Martin introduced Mido from the substitutes bench with an hour on the clock and us trailing 1-0 in this key Premiership encounter.

He had toyed with a straight striker swap with Robbie but opted to keep the in-form Irish star on in a right midfield role and instead withdrew Stephen Kelly with Jermaine Jenas switching to right-back.

Minutes later and Robbie levelled the scores with a deft finish to a slick passing move and he then stayed cool as you like to slot home a last-minute penalty winner as many of the 36,000 crowd could barely watch.

"I had a little impulse to change Robbie but I thought 'no' and played him on the right because he'd done that before for us," said Martin.

"You would normally change a striker for a striker but we wanted the three points.

"Can you imagine now if I'd changed Robbie? I didn't because Robbie has proved that he can be a real team player out of position and he went out on the right and scored his two goals.

"I'm very pleased with him and Jermain because if he wasn't there and pressurising the keeper we wouldn't have scored the winner.

"We showed that we wanted to win and took a risk because every time they regained the ball they had four midfield players against two or three, but sometimes you have to take a gamble.

"Every game for us is a fight but we came back and showed a lot of character."